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The British and West German Protests against Nuclear Weapons and the Cultures of the Cold War, 1957–64

2005; Routledge; Volume: 19; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13619460500080314

1743-7997

Holger Nehring,

Literature, Film, and Journalism Analysis

Abstract This article compares the ways in which Cold War culture in general and ‘nuclear culture’ in particular framed British and West German anti-nuclear-weapons campaigns in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Rather than interpreting the movements as protests against nuclear weapons only, this article suggests that the movements mounted a more fundamental resistance against the Cold War's effects on international relations, politics and society. In order to express this resistance, the protesters in both countries revitalised very specific national protest traditions. In exploring the relationship between Cold War culture and political traditions, the article highlights the ambiguities of Cold War culture in Britain and West Germany. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Julia Moses and Stefan Berger for helpful comments on previous versions of this article. Notes Holger Nehring is Junior Research Fellow at St. Peter's College, Oxford. Correspondence to: Holger Nehring, Junior Research Fellow, St. Peter's College, New Inn Hall Street, Oxford OX1 2DL, UK. Email: holger.nehring@history.ox.ac.uk. [1] This definition follows Jürgen Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1981), vol. 2, pp.182–228. Cf. also the contemporary interpretation by Raymond Williams: Culture and Society, 1780–1950 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1958) and the theoretical piece by William H. Sewell, Jr., ‘The Concept(s) of Culture’, in Victoria E. Bonnell and Lynn Hunt (eds.), Beyond the Cultural Turn. New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1999), pp.35–61. [2] Peter Hennessy, The Secret State. Whitehall and the Cold War (London: Allen Lane, 2002), p.1. [3] Cf. Peter Catterall, ‘Contemporary British History: A Personal View’, Contemporary British History, 16 (2002), pp.1–10, here p.3. For a more recent work cf. Hugh Wilford, The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War. Calling the Tune? (London: Frank Cass, 2003). For West Germany cf. Patrick Major, The Death of the KPD. Communism and anti-Communism in West Germany, 1945–1956 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); Uta G. Poiger, Jazz, Rock, and Rebels: Cold War Politics and American Culture in a Divided Germany (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 2000). [4] April Carter, Peace Movements. International Protest and World Politics since 1945 (London: Longman, 1992) and Lawrence S. Wittner, The Struggle against the Bomb. Vol. 2: Resisting the Bomb. A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement 1954–1970 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997). [5] Trevor Fisher has stressed these continuities in another area: ‘Permissiveness and the Politics of Morality’, Contemporary Record, 7 (1993), pp.149–65. [6] Cf. Richard Taylor, Against the Bomb. The British Peace Movement 1958–1965 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), pp.42, 57, and p.77, footnote 16. [7] Lawrence S. Wittner, Resisting the Bomb, pp.65 and 220 and Hans Karl Rupp, Auβerparlamentarische Opposition in der Ära Adenauer: Der Kampf gegen die Atombewaffnung in den fünfiger Jahren. Eine Studie zur innenpolitischen Entwicklung der Bundesrepublik (Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1984), pp.130–43. [8] The standard work is Taylor, Against the Bomb. Good on continuities: Christopher Driver, The Disarmers. A Study in Protest (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1964). [9] Major, Death of the KPD, p.294. Cf., as one example amongst many, ‘Gesteuerte Atomhysterie’, Rheinischer Merkur, 9 Apr. 1954. [10] On continuities with earlier protest movements cf. Jost Dülffer, ‘The Movement against Rearmament 1951–55 and the movement against nuclear armament 1957/59 in the Federal Republic: A Comparison’, in Maurice Vaïsse (ed.), Le pacifisme en Europe des années 1920 aux années 1950 (Brussels: Bruylant, 1993), pp.417–34. [11] The standard works are: Rupp, Auβerparlamentarische Opposition; Karl A. Otto, Vom Ostermarsch zur APO. Geschichte der ausserparlamentarischen Opposition in der Bundesrepublik 1960–1970 (Frankfurt: Campus, 1982). [12] Cf. Holger Nehring, ‘Toward a social history of transnational relations: The British and West German protests against nuclear weapons, 1957–1964’, in Jessica Gienow-Hecht and Frank Schumacher (eds.), New Perspectives in Culture and International History (New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2005 (in preparation)). [13] Cf. Frank Parkin, Middle Class Radicalism. The Social Bases of the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1968) and the critical assessment by Paul Bagguley, ‘Middle-class Radicalism Revisited’, in Tim Butler and Mike Savage (eds.), Social Change and the Middle Classes (London: UCL Press, 1995), pp.293–309. [14] Cf. more generally: Brian Harrison, ‘A Genealogy of Reform in Modern Britain’, in Christine Bolt and Seymour Drescher (eds.), Anti-Slavery, Religion, and Reform: Essays in Memory of Roger Anstey (Folkestone and Hamden, Conn.: Dawson, 1980), pp.119–148. [15] Cf. David Blaazer, The Popular Front and the Progressive Traditions. Socialists, Liberals, and the Quest for Unity, 1884–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Tom Buchanan, The Spanish Civil War and the British labour movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). [16] On the emergence of this consensus in Britain: Wilford, CIA, pp.17–47. In West Germany, this consensus emerged later. Cf. Julia Angster, Konsenskapitalismus und Sozialdemokratie. Die Westernisierung von SPD und DGB (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2003). [17] Henry J. Steck, ‘The Re-Emergence of Ideological Politics in Great Britain: The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’, The Western Political Quarterly, 18 (1965), pp.87–103 and Giles Scott-Smith, ‘The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the End of Ideology and the 1955 Milan Conference’, Journal of Contemporary History, 37 (2002), 437–456. [18] Cf. Lawrence Black, The Political Culture of the Left in Affluent Britain, 1951–64. Old Labour, New Britain? (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2003), especially pp.12–40. [19] Gareth Stedman Jones, ‘Why is the Labour Party in a Mess?’, in Jones, Languages of Class. Studies in English Working Class History, 1832–1982 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp.239–256, especially pp.245–51. [20] This is highlighted by Stephen Woodhams, History in the Making. Raymond Williams, Edward Thompson and Radical Intellectuals, 1936–1956 (London: Merlin, 2001). For the general background cf. Lawrence Goldman, Dons and Workers: Oxford and Adult Education since 1850 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp.248–98. [21] J.B. Priestley, ‘Our New Society’ [1955], in Priestley, Thoughts in the Wilderness (London: Heinemann, 1957), pp.120–26, here p.124. [22] J.B. Priestley, ‘Thoughts in the Wilderness’, in Priestley, Thoughts, pp.1–7. Cf. the similar arguments in E.P. Thompson (ed.), Out of Apathy (London: Stevens & Sons, 1960). [23] Cf. for a similar campaign: Tom Buchanan, “The Truth will set you free”: The Making of Amnesty International’, Journal of Contemporary History, 37 (2002), pp.575–97. [24] Cf. David Prynn, ‘The Woodcraft Folk and the Labour Movement 1925–70’, Journal of Contemporary History, 18 (1983), pp.79–95 and R.A. Wilford, ‘The “Federation of Progressive Societies and Individuals”’, in Journal of Contemporary History, 11 (1976), pp.49–82. [25] Cf. Jochen Zimmer, ‘Das Abseits als vermiedener Irrweg. Die Natufreundejugend in der westdeutschen Friedens- und Ökologiebewegung bis zum Ende der APO’, in Heinz Hoffmann and Jochen Zimmer (eds.), Wir sind die grüne Garde. Geschichte der Naturfreundejugend (Essen: Klartext, 1986), pp.93–110; and Klaus Vack, ‘Blick zurück ohne Zorn? – Einige politisch-persönliche Auskünfte über Engagement und Organisation sozialer Bewegungen’, Forschungsjournal Neue Soziale Bewegungen, 2 (Nov. 1989), pp.131–139. [26] Brynmor Jones Library, University of Hull [henceforth BJL], John Saville papers, JS-109: John Saville to Ralph [Samuel], 21 May 1958. [27] BJL, John Saville papers, JS-109: Edward P. Thompson to John Saville, 31 Mar. n.y. [1958?]. [28] Cf. Darren G. Lilleker, ‘Against the Cold War: The nature and traditions of pro-Soviet sentiment in the British Labour Party 1945–89’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Sheffield, 2002); Stefan Berger and Darren Lilleker, ‘The British Labour Party and the German Democratic Republic during the Era of Non-Recognition, 1949–1973’, Historical Journal, 45 (2002), pp.433–58. [29] John Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis and Conflict: The CPGB 1951–1968 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2003), pp.141–151. [30] Cf. D.L. Prynn, ‘Common Wealth – A British “Third Party” of the 1940s’, Journal of Contemporary History, 7 (1972), pp.169–79 and Angus Calder, The People's War. Britain 1939–1945 (London: Pimlico, 1969), pp.546–50. [31] On religion and the Cold War more generally cf. Dianne Kirby (ed.), Religion and the Cold War (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). [32] Chris Waters, ‘J.B. Priestley 1894–1984. Englishness and the politics of nostalgia’, in Susan Pedersen and Peter Mandler (eds.), After the Victorians: Private conscience and public duty in modern Britain. Essays in memory of John Clive (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), pp.209–26. [33] J.B. Priestley, ‘Britain and the Nuclear Bombs’, New Statesman 54 (2 Nov., 1957), pp.554–556, here p.555. [34] Priestley, ‘Thoughts in the Wilderness’, p.4. [35] Priestley, ‘Time, please’, in Priestley, Thoughts, pp.40–46, here p.45. [36] Canon L. John Collins, Faith under Fire (London: Leslie Frewin, 1966). [37] On Russell cf. Ray Monk, Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude (London: Jonathan Cape, 1996) and Monk, Bertrand Russell, 1921–70: The Ghost of Madness (London: Jonathan Cape, 2000), especially pp.373–453. [38] Peggy Duff, Left, Left, Left: A Personal account of six protest campaigns 1945–65 (London: Allison & Busby, 1971). [39] Ruth Dudley Edwards, Victor Gollancz: A Biography (London: Gollancz, 1987). [40] Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour People: Leaders and Lieutenants, Hardie to Kinnock (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p.278. [41] Stefan Berger and Darren Lilleker, ‘Blutrünstige Diktatur, das bessere Deutschland oder Stolperstein auf dem Weg zur friedlichen Koexistenz? Die DDR im Blick der britischen Labour Party, 1949–1973’, in: Arnd Bauerkämper (ed.), Britain and the GDR: Relations and Perceptions in a Divided World (Berlin and Vienna: Philo, 2002), pp.235–66, here pp.249–52. [42] Cf. Willie Thompson, ‘The New Left in Scotland’, in Ian MacDougall (ed.), Essays in Scottish Labour History: A Tribute to W.H. Marwick (Edinburgh: Donald, 1978), pp.207–24. Cf. also Daly Papers, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick [henceforth MRC], MSS.302/3/12: Rules of the Fife Socialist League, [n.d.]. [43] BJL, John Saville papers, JS-109: Edward P. Thompson to John Saville, n.d. [c. Apr. 1958]; Edward P. Thompson, ‘Where are we now?’ n.d. [c. 1963]; BJL, John Saville papers, JS-108: Edward P. Thompson to John Saville, n.d. [c. Jan. 1957]. [44] Frank E. Myers, ‘Civil Disobedience and Organizational Change: The British Committee of 100’, Political Science Quarterly, 86 (1971), pp.92–112 and Taylor, Against the Bomb, pp.190–269. [45] On the more general developments of British and West German Social Democracy after 1945 cf. Stefan Berger, ‘The Labour Party and the German Social Democrats (1945–1994)’, in: Stephen Haseler and Henning Meyer (eds.), Reshaping Social Democracy: Labour and the SPD in the New Century (London: European Research Forum, 2004), pp.29–45. On revisionism in comparative perspective cf. Anthony J. Nicholls, ‘Zwei Wege in den Revisionismus: die Labour Partei und die SPD in der Ära des Godesberger Programms’, in: Jürgen Kocka et al. (eds.), Von der Arbeiterbewegung zum modernen Sozialstaat. Festschrift für Gerhard A. Ritter (Munich: K.G., Saur, 1994), pp.190–204. [46] Cf. Claus Leggewie, Kofferträger. Das Algerien-Projekt der Linken im Adenauer-Deutschland (Berlin: Rotbuch, 1984). [47] Horst Bethge, “Die Bombe ist böse.” Wie in Hamburg der Ostermarsch entstand’, in Jörg Berlin (ed.), Das andere Hamburg. Freiheitliche Bestrebungen in der Hansestadt seit dem Spätmittelalter (Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1981), pp.357–68. [48] On Peace News cf. Albert Beale, Against All War: Fifty Years of Peace News, 1936–1986 (Nottingham: Peace News, 1986). [49] On the USA cf. Allen Smith, ‘Present at the Creation … and other Myths: The Port Huron Statement and the Origins of the New Left’, Peace & Change, 25 (2000), pp.339–62. [50] Archiv der sozialen Demokratie, Bonn [henceforth AdsD]: Minutes of the Parteivorstand, 9–10 Jan. 1961; Minutes of the Präsidium, 20 Feb. 1961, pp.837–838. [51] Cf. Rolf Elker et al. (ed.), Beiträge zur Geschichte des SDS (Berlin: Asta FU Berlin, 1987), p.45. [52] Cf. Hans Manfred Bock, ‘Der schwierige Dritte Weg im Sozialismus. Die Sozialistische Politik und ihre gesellschaftlichen Trägergruppen 1954 bis 1966 im Spektrum linkssozialistischer Zeitschriften’, in Michel Grunewald and Hans Manfred Bock (eds.), Le milieu intellectuel de gauche en Allemagne, sa presse et ses réseaux (1890–1960) (Berne: P. Lang, 2002), pp.659–88. [53] Georg Bollenbeck, Bildung und Kultur: Glanz und Elend eines deutschen Deutungsmusters (Frankfurt: Insel, 1994). [54] Taylor, Against the Bomb, pp.28–9. For discussions in the Federal Republic cf. Otto, Ostermarsch, pp.92–5. [55] Cf. MRC, CND papers, MSS.181/4: Songs and Hopes Instead: The Sanity Songbook. For the background cf. Georgina Boyes, The Imagined Village: Culture, Ideology and the English Folk Revival (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1993) as well as Gerald Porter, “The World's Ill-Divided”: the Communist Party and Progressive Song’, in Andy Croft (ed.), A Weapon in the Struggle: The Cultural History of the Communist Party in Britain (London: Pluto, 1998), pp.171–91. [56] Cf. Adam Roberts, ‘The Uncertain Anarchists’, New Society, 27 May 1965, pp.16–18; David Stafford, ‘Anarchists in Britain today’, in David E. Apter and James Joll (eds.), Anarchism Today (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1971), pp.84–104. [57] Taylor, Against the Bomb, pp.216–69. [58] Myers, ‘Civil Disobedience’. [59] Jon Lawrence, ‘Forging a Peaceable Kingdom: War, Violence, and Fear of Brutalization in Post-First World War Britain’, Journal of Modern History, 75 (2003), pp.557–89; Susan Kingsley Kent, Making Peace: The Reconstruction of Gender in Interwar Britain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), ch. 6; Charles Townshend, Making the Peace. Public Order and Public Security in Modern Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp.132–44. [60] Martin Conway, ‘The Rise and Fall of Western Europe's Democratic Age, 1945–1973’, Contemporary European History, 13 (2004), pp.67–88. [61] Cf. Myers, ‘Civil Disobedience’ and Taylor, Against the Bomb, pp.269–272. [62] AdsD: Minutes of the SPD Parteivorstand, 17 Feb. 1961. [63] On these distinctions cf. Martin Ceadel, Thinking about Peace and War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). [64] Cf. Hinton, Protests and Visions, p.154. [65] Cf. Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, “Im Kampf um Frieden” und “Freiheit”. Über den Zusammenhang von Ideologie und Sozialkultur im Ost-West-Konflikt’, in Hans Günter Hockerts (ed.), Koordinaten deutscher Geschichte in der Epoche des Ost-West-Konflikts (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2004), pp.29–47; Edward P. Thompson, Beyond the Cold War (London: Merlin Press, 1982), p.6. [66] On the accusation of political naivety cf. the material in Lord Simon of Wythenshawe Papers, Manchester Archives and Local Studies, M11 8/3. On the relevance of pro-Soviet and pro-GDR sentiments in the Labour Party cf. Lilleker, Against the Cold War. [67] Cf. Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Kommunisten in der Weimarer Republik. Sozialgeschichte einer revolutionären Bewegung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1996). [68] On the research agenda cf. Harriet Jones, ‘Conference Report: Is CPGB History important?’, Labour History Review, 67 (2002), pp.347–53 and Kevin Morgan, ‘Labour with Knobs on? The Recent Historiography of the British Communist Party’, Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts für soziale Bewegungen, 27 (2002), pp.69–83. For examples of a more milieu-centred account CF. Callaghan, Cold War. Thought-provoking: Raphael Samuel, ‘The Lost World of British Communism’, Parts I, II, III, New Left Review, 154 (Nov./Dec. 1985), pp.3–53; 156 (Mar./Apr. 1986), pp.63–113; 165 (Sep./Oct. 1987), pp.52–91 and John Saville, ‘The Communist Experience: A Personal Appraisal’, Socialist Register (1991), pp.1–27. [69] Cf., for example, AdsD, 2/PVAM000018: Ansgar Skriver to Alexander Maaβ, 3 Apr. 1960. [70] Private archive Hans-Konrad Tempel, Ahrensburg (Germany): ‘Ostermarsch der Atomwaffengegner, Zentraler Ausschuβ: Kernsätze für die Redner des Ostermarsches der Atomwaffengegner’, [autumn 1960]; AdsD, 2/PVAM000017: Irmgard Löwe to Alexander Maaβ, 26 Mar. 1961. [71] On the New Left in Britain and West Germany: Michael Kenny, The First New Left: British Intellectuals after Stalin (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1995); Siegward Lönnendonker, Bernd Rabehl and Jochen Staadt, Die antiautoritäre Revolte. Der Sozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund nach der Trennung von der SPD. Vol. I: 1960 – 1967 (Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2002). Cf. AdsD, 2/PVAM000012: Willy Brandt to Walter Menzel, 28 Jan. 1960. [72] Major, Death of the KPD, pp.259–277. [73] Cf. F.S. Northedge and Audrey Wells, Britain and Soviet Communism. The Impact of a Revolution (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1982), pp.103–25 and Peter Weiler, British Labour and the Cold War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988); cf. Phillip Deery, “The Secret Batallion”: Communism in Britain during the Cold War’, Contemporary British History, 13, 4 (1999), pp.1–28 and Callaghan, Cold War. [74] MRC, CND papers, MSS.181/4: ‘Women ask why. An intelligent woman's guide to nuclear disarmament’ [1962], p.15. More generally: Jill Liddington, The Long Road to Greenham: Feminism and Anti-militarism in Britain since 1820 (London: Virago, 1989). [75] Irene Stoehr, “Feministischer Antikommunismus” und weibliche Staatsbürgerschaft in der Gründungsdekade der Bundesrepublik’, Feministische Studien, 16, 1 (1998), pp.86–94; Irene Stoehr, ‘Der Mütterkongreβ fand nicht statt. Frauenbewegungen, Staatsmänner und Kalter Krieg 1950’, WerkstattGeschichte, 17 (1997), pp.66–82. [76] New York Times, 13 July 1950. [77] Jürgen von Hehn, ‘Die Weltfriedensbewegung im Atomzeitalter’, Europa-Archiv, 20 Aug. 1954, pp.6807–6821. [78] Cf., for example, Bundesarchiv Koblenz [henceforth BAK], B106/16054: ‘Die kommunistische Kampagne gegen die atomare Bewaffnung der Bundeswehr (1 June to 15 Sep.1958)’, and BAK B106/16053: ‘Komitee gegen die Atomrüstung, Würzburg’, Dec. 1958. [79] Quoted in Brian Brivati, Hugh Gaitskell (London, 1997), p.374. Cf. also Callaghan, Cold War, pp.141–51 and Hennessy, Secret State, pp.100–112; Paul Mercer, “Peace” of the dead: The truth behind the nuclear disarmers (London, 1986), pp.46–82. [80] On CND's views on international relations cf. Mark Phythian, ‘CND's Cold War’, Contemporary British History, 15 (2001), pp.133–56. [81] Arnold Sywottek, ‘Die Opposition der SPD und der KPD gegen die westdeutsche Aufrüstung in der Tradition sozialdemokratischer und kommunistischer Friedenspolitik seit dem Ersten Weltkrieg’, in: Wolfgang Huber and Johannes Schwerdtfeger (eds.), Frieden, Gewalt, Sozialismus. Studien zur Geschichte der sozialistischen Arbeiterbewegung (Stuttgart: Klett, 1976), pp.497–610; Callaghan, Cold War, pp.141–51. [82] John Gaddis, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). [83] Stiftung Archiv Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Hans Werner Richter Archiv, 72.86.511: Hans Werner Richter, ‘Rede zur Gründung des Gründwalder Kreises’, n.d. [4 Mar. 1956, Sportschule Grünwald], p.5. [84] Cf. Thompson, Beyond the Cold War, p.3. Thompson expressed similar views in the 1960s: BJL, John Saville papers, JS-109: Edward P. Thompson to John Saville, 31 Mar. n.y. [1958]; John Saville to Ralph [Samuel], 21 May 1958. [85] Dirk Moses, ‘Die 45er. Eine Generation zwischen Faschismus und Demokratie’, Neue Sammlung, 40 (2000), pp.233–63. [86] For an example cf. the cover of pläne, (1963) issues 6–7 which shows the symbols of earlier German youth movements. Additional informationNotes on contributorsHolger Nehring Footnote Holger Nehring is Junior Research Fellow at St. Peter's College, Oxford. Correspondence to: Holger Nehring, Junior Research Fellow, St. Peter's College, New Inn Hall Street, Oxford OX1 2DL, UK. Email: holger.nehring@history.ox.ac.uk.